Power Surge

hey everyone,

so yesterday had a power surge and my UPS started going off like a mad man displaying error F02. which for APC is a short on the output side. only three things i have connected on the output side, which are two monitors and my tower. two monitors still work so that only leaves the tower which wont power on. i called my insurance company, i have to have the system evaluated. so really my question is during a power surge, what typically gets fried on a system? just a PSU? or could the whole system be toasted?

Psu then motherboard. I'd clear your CMOS and try powering it on. Sometimes that can balance out weird amounts of electricity in the system.

so i took out the cmos battery. waited a while, popped back in. no dice. still dead as a door knob.

Yeah hopefully its only the power supply, but if it is the motherboard too then more could be damaged.

i guess if more is damaged and the local computer shop declares it a loss then i get me a decent new tower.

Haha well yeah thats one way too look at it.

well the surge took out my desktop tower, my old server and my dishwasher.

I just had a surge a few months back, so I feel your pain. Just to check, you have tried plugging in your computer to a different outlet/surge protector, right? Or at least a different outlet on your ups?

Yeah, even tried different circuit altogether by means of extension cable. I don't have spare parts just laying around so can't really identify if it was just a psu or what it was

Alright. Just wanted to be sure, since it could have been a problem with your UPS (or specific outlets on it). As was pointed out above, in a surge, PSU is the first to go, generally followed by the motherboard (though components connected directly to the PSU can follow as well) and then followed by the rest of the components. How far it goes really depends on the severity of the surge, and, well, luck lol. Electricity is funny that way.

yeah...thats what has me worried, is that it took out the psu and then that took out everything else. which is good and bad. bad because well i dont have a desktop for a while...good because well if its a loss insurance will cover cost to replace it